Petting farm but not

As odd as it may sound, the very best job in the whole world was when I worked at a petting farm. Its a temporary job for only one month a year but I got to be in the pens, hands on with my favorite farm animal, the PIG!! First year I helped at a birthing and had so bonded with the mama pig that I could actually get in the pen with her babies and she was perfectly relaxed. The boar was a big ugly boy, scarey to look at but he had a crush on me and as soon as I came to the pen and spoke his name, he'd get up and lumber over to me and slobber all over my hand. I was advised to NOT get in the pen with him and I didn't but I loved him anyway. I discovered that pigs actually have a sense of humor and can laugh only its more like a cartoon animals heh heh heh than a human laugh. But they do laugh. They also like to play tricks on the humans about and then chuckle to themselves afterwards.
This past year was a little messier. I again assisted at a birth and when one of the little sucker's cords sprung a leak I got well and truly bloodied. So much so that when I went into a grocery store afterwards some lady asked if I was ok because I was all bloody. I had washed my hands and arms but the blood on my clothes was at my waist, a spot I cannot see because of the ledge of bosom I sport. I told the woman I was fine that it was pig's blood. She looked at me as if I would go for her throat and backed away quickly muttering to herself.
I did get bloodied when the boar, a big slow moving gentle guy, decided that he needed a girlfriend and I was it. AS I tried to get out of the pen, he tried to keep me in and ended up grinding his sawn off tuck stump into my leg. He broke the skin but not seriously and it hardly bled. He didn't even tear my pants.
This year's mam pig had a tendency to sit on her baby who would scream bloody murder while the kids around the pen would scream as well. So I'd get in the pen and try to shift her off the baby. First time, Santa Claus jumped in with me and the two of us shifted her. At least the guy looked like Santa. Second time just as a woman started to enter to help me mam pig lunged to her feet and came after me. Holy crap, flashing piggy eyes and gnashing piggy teeth and 800 pounds to back it all up. Mam's head came to my waist so we're not talking cute little piglings here.
Now no one ever thought to tell us what ot do in case of an attack. All I did was place the flat of my hand angainst her forehead and try to keep her at arms length. Now the gates to the pen opened in so I was screwed. The kids and adults around the pen were absolutely silent. They had to be otherwise I never would have heard the woman who yelled, 'I have the gate'. Another voice yelled distract her and I heard the crinkle of plastic and saw a flapping grocery bag out of the corner of my eye. Mama's concentration wavered and in a zip I was out the gate. There I stood trying to catch my breath. The crowd just gaped at me. I took a breath and announced. "And that is why we don't let you in the pens with the mamas." Talk about an understatement.
Anyhow a couple of days later I discovered that I was famous. I was known as the lady to fought off the pig. My exploits had gone around a number of schools and when the second groups from those schools came as a field trip they all wanted to see the pig lady. It's not often when you get a chance to be truely brave.
I got a letter from the farm yesterday asking me to work their spring time show which is called NAtive lands. It's only four days, five if it rains one daym and while there are animlas there are no pens. Instead I discovered, when I called today and told them to sign me up, that I'm going to be doing the face painting and they pick and choose the people they want to work this show instead of sending out a letter to everyone who worked the year before like they do with the farm. I worked for a month and I stood out enough for something creative. I don't know how they knew that either. So today during the boring time at work I made a necklace and a pair of earrings that would fit with the native lands theme. The husband will just have to do without me at the office. I'm glad he's gone these two days. Things were getting tense.
So the pig lady is going to be the face painting lady. Hopefully none of my human canvases will attack. Nor will their mothers sit on them.